


Messy Love

by Lady_Blackhawk



Series: The In-Between of Alex and Charlie [5]
Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Bryce Walker, Mentions of Jessica Davis - Freeform, Mentions of Sex, Mentions of Zach Dempsey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25115350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Blackhawk/pseuds/Lady_Blackhawk
Summary: Charlie didn't know when to bring it up. He wanted to ask about what happened on the roof. But when is the best time? When one of your friends is dying in a hospital? After said friend's funeral? No. Of course not. So Charlie stays silent. Until something reminds him of that rooftop and he can't help but ask.That question...that one simple question and the flood gates open and Alex finally tells him everything.Follow up to "This Might be Love" but can be read on its own.
Relationships: Charlie St. George/Alex Standall
Series: The In-Between of Alex and Charlie [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796161
Comments: 13
Kudos: 76





	Messy Love

**Author's Note:**

> So...this might have gotten away from me a little bit. I hope it flows well. I think this is what was left to be said at the end of This Might be Love between Charlie and Alex. So I hope you like it. I may do a sort of follow up conversation between Charlie and Zach. But I'm not sure yet. IF you'd like to see me write specific one-shot, suggestions are always welcome.

13 RW6

Charlie really doesn’t want to bring it up, partially because he doesn’t want to be that kind of boyfriend, that gets jealous and shit. But also, when is the best time to bring up the question of an intimate moment your now-boyfriend shared with his best friend on a rooftop? This would be the single worst time to bring something like that up. The single worst, as another friend, is in the hospital, and everything spirals and everything feels like it’s on the edge of topping over into an abyss.

So, he stayed silent. He puts it out of his mind and hoped maybe he’ll forget about it. He focuses on being there for his friends, being there for Alex, and Alex is there for him too, as they spend a lot of time in the hospital waiting room hoping for a shred of good news, of some semblance of the positive.

It doesn’t come.

It doesn’t come and they go from the hospital to a funeral, to Monet’s and then Winston. Charlie isn’t jealous of Winston. He now knows the guy was hung up on Monty, for some reason that Charlie can’t quite wrap his mind around. This still isn’t the best time, not at a wake. Not when he sees the look of relief on Alex’s face when he comes back into the café, plops down beside him on the couch, and lets Charlie wrap his arms around him.

It’s on a weekend a few days after graduation, on a lazy Sunday when they’re watching movies at his house in between snarky comments and sweet kisses that he’s reminded of it. They’re on the couch when it happens and he has Spider-Man to blame for it. And not even the good Spider-Man movie, but Amazing Spider-Man with Peter and Gwen on a rooftop.

“Alex…can I ask you something?” he asked, pressing pause on the film.

“Yeah, of course.”

“C…can you tell me what happened on the roof with Zach after winter break?”

Alex sees the way Charlie’s trying not to meet his eyes and how he’s fiddling with his hands, unsure of what to do. He grabbed Charlie’s hand.

“I was worried about him, and he said we should do something, so after school we like drove around for a while. Then we ended up on the roof of this building, and I lost my balance and almost fell, Zach caught me and…it was stupid.” Alex sighed. “We joked about it after.”

“Are you…were you into him?” Charlie asked.

“I think I had a crush on him at one point. I mean, we can both admit he’s pretty attractive.” Charlie wanted to laugh, but the air just wouldn’t leave his lungs. “Sorry…what I mean is, he helped me through my PT, and drove me to school, and carried my backpack and that had been nice. Last semester I spiraled, big time, between everything with Jess and…the homecoming game.” Alex feels nauseous just thinking about it. “And after. On the roof with Zach, I felt safe and relieved in a way, you know? It was dumb. I regretted it the second it happened.”

“Because Zach isn’t into guys?”

“Because I’m not into Zach,” Alex replied, maybe with a little more force than he intended. “I love Zach, but not like that. I just got caught up in a moment of not dying, and feeling safe, and having someone support me.” Charlie’s face twisted further into a frown. “But there are so many reasons why Zach and I would never work as a couple. One being I’m pretty in love with you, but others include but aren’t limited to Zach being in love with Chloe, and the fact that he and I both changed after the homecoming game. I love him, sure, just like I love my brother, even though he drives me up the wall every time he’s home.” Charlie looked on, relief in his eyes. “What happened on that rooftop was…it felt like having both feet on the ground and having someone hold you. I didn’t have that feeling again, of complete safety, until you.”

“So then…it was just a question of feeling safe?”

Alex sat up straight, letting go of Charlie, as the boy moved to face him. “Pretty much. There is something else you should know though. It doesn’t have anything to do with Zach though.” Charlie nodded. “The only person I really dated before you is Jessica, and I think you know how that ended,” Charlie added a vague mumble of acknowledgment. “I had a lot of…self-esteem issues after my…my injury and certain parts of me didn’t quite work right until one day they did. Then Jess broke up with me, and then I find out that she’d been having sex with Justin behind my back. I felt used, jerked around and I felt broken, so I did a lot of stupid things, like hanging out with Bryce.”

Charlie could feel the anxiety seeping from Alex’s voice and reached out for him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to continue. It’s ok.”

“No. I want to. I need to.” Alex relaxed slightly. “Do you remember when I came to your house and I said I wasn’t quite ready to have sex, yet.”

“Yeah.”

“I told you why and all of the things I said were true. But there were other things I wasn’t quite ready to say out loud.” Alex bit his lip, pulling his knees up to his chest. “I’m not proud of it. But I hit a low, a real low after Jessica ended it. Looking back on it, I thought I was in love with her. But I wasn’t. I liked the idea of being in love, and being in a relationship and to lose it like that, and then find out that the person you thought you loved didn’t love you and cheated on you… I had so much anger and self-loathing, so I turned destructive. She made me feel like I wasn’t good enough…so Bryce got me steroids, and he was willing to help me get laid.” He took a deep breath, “He took me to some escort…and it was...” Alex felt repulsed just talking about it, it made him physically uncomfortable and shook his head as if he was trying to wiggle out of the feeling. “It was…I’m not proud of it…I even went back to see her once, but I just broke down crying.” He tried not to cry at that moment.

Charlie opened his hand for Alex to take if he needed it, and he did. “So, after all of that, and everything with Bryce…Zach was always there for me and not just with PT. He helped me understand my body again.” Charlie raised an eyebrow. “Not quite like that, but he let me talk to him about my problems without judging me, or being repulsed, even if it made him uncomfortable. And there he was on that rooftop, saving me again…and he held me close, and I was caught up in that feeling of not dying, so I kissed him. Zach and I actually joked about it before the Find Your Drink party. And everything I had felt, and everything I needed…I think it pushed me towards Winston.”

“How do you mean?” asked Charlie, as Alex looked up at the ceiling.

“I think I just wanted to let go, and have something that didn’t need a label. I’d become jaded about love and…maybe I also wanted something that was juts mine without strings, or judgment, or history. Winston didn’t know anything about me, not really. But he didn’t ask questions, or prod, or demand anything.”

“It’s understandable though,” Charlie. “You wanted an escape.”

Alex nodded absentmindedly. “See, I’m not a good person Charlie.”

Charlie finally reached out and pulled Alex into his arms. “All I see is a person who’s been through a lot, far more than any normal person can bear and you made it through.”

Alex snorted. “Barely.”

“I’m serious. You’ve been through so much and you’re still here and that’s amazing. And I’m glad too.” Charlie gently squeezed his shoulder; he could feel tears pooling in his eyes. “I’m sorry if me asking about Zach brought all this up.”

“G-d I love you.” Alex turned to face him, tears already pooling in his own eyes. “I didn’t tell you this to make you feel bad. I told you because I think if we want to move forward from just making out, that you need to know the full story of some of the mistakes I made that are a bit more relevant to our relationship right now. I love you and only you. You got me?”

Charlie smiled for the first time throughout this entire thing. “I get you! I love you too. A whole lot.”

“Good!” Alex replied and kissed him. “Now would be a really good time for you to talk about your exes.”

“I...don't really have any…I mean I asked Betty to go to Homecoming with me and we dated for maybe a month before that. But we were better off as friends.”

“So, you two…never…”

“Nope!” Charlie replied. “She’s a sophomore and on the cheer squad and she’s nice. I think she’s dating someone on the JV baseball team right now and she’s happy.”

“That’s…actually really sweet,” Alex replied, putting his head on Charlie’s shoulder.

“There was this one summer camp thing the summer after my freshman year. It was at football camp with other players from the district. It was pretty fun and there was this running back from Oakland. I kissed him..and he wasn't interested so...” Charlie shrugged slightly. “That’s all there is. Now there’s just you and you’re the best.”

“I think given this conversation I am clearly not.”

Charlie pressed his cheek gently to Alex. “One day, I am going to make you see just how amazing you are.”

“Can we go back to the movie?” Charlie smiled and pressed play on the movie, wrapping his arm around his boyfriend.


End file.
